Experience

2023

Investigations Editor

The Stanford Daily

As Investigations Editor, I’ve authored work that led to the first ever Polk Award for a student newspaper. My articles have prompted investigations by Stanford, Science, Cell, and other organizations; plus my journalism has been picked up dozens of times by national news outlets. My very first article was referenced on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. I've broken stories about an reported $30m fraud verdict against a famous genenticist, a "war on social life" that has led to a decline in social events of all sorts and an increase in medical emergencies, a man who pretended to be a Stanford student for a year, living in dorms all the while Stanford knew of his presence and did not inform students, and plenty besides that.

2023

Organizer

TreeHacks

I helped run an event for 1,750 college students from around the world, planning and running dozens of workshops, recruiting and working with sponsors like YCombinator and OpenAI, and helping put together a weekend designed for maximum impact in Education, Healthcare, Sustainability, Privacy + Security, New Frontiers, and other areas. We provided $160k in prizes and paid for all of our teams to fly out from around the world to remove as many barriers to entry as possible. Teams had access to hardware, APIs, incredible mentors, and everything they needed to make awesome projects.

2023

Teaching Assistant

Stanford University

Under CS Professor Jerry Cain, I'm helping to teach CS106S: Coding for Social Good, a class designed to incorporate technical skills with ethical frameworks.

2022

Research Assistant

Cyber Policy Center

I'm helping Marietje Schaake, the former Dutch representative to the European Parliament, write a book about Cyber Policy.

2022

Research Assistant

Stanford Internet Observatory

I worked with the Election Integrity Partnership to do real-time election disinformation monitoring and combating during the 2022 midterm season using OSINT tools and working with a phenomenal team of researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington.

2022

Volunteer

World Central Kitchen

Weeks after I graduated from high school, I got on a plane and flew to the border of Ukraine, volunteering with the World Central Kitchen in Prezmysl, Poland to feed thousands of displaced Ukrainians fleeing Putin's brutal war. Our team prepared up to 7,000 sandwiches and thousands more hot meals each day. I also spent time distributing food at the train station where refugees were arriving from Ukraine and in the converted mall that housed a thousand beds full of mostly women and children.

2022

Independent Researcher

Phillips Academy Andover

In my last year at Andover, I'm undertaking an ambitious series of projects. Currently, I'm conducting an interdisciplinary Independent Project in History/English where I'm writing a counterfactual novel. I'm conducting another History/English project next term about post-Napoleonic European Literature, while simultaneously completing another Computer Science IP. And in the Spring, I've been accepted into Andover's hallowed school within a school – The Workshop. The Workshop is a multidisciplinary opportunity which requires me to take no classes other than The Workshop, instead spending all of my time on the projects we produce. I hope to begin a longitudinal study on pedagogy which will continue after my departure.

2021

College Intern

The Generation Lab

Because of my research with The Gen Z Project, I was accepted to the college internship program of the Generation Lab, a public opinions firm focused on 18-29 year olds. I generated my own poll, pitched it, fielded it, analyzed it, and had it published in Axios. I also worked on AI strategy for the firm and expanded their database of respondents by deploying webscrapers on college directories.

2021

Co-President

Computer Science Club

Despite being a new Junior, I earned a number of board positions. I'm most proud of CS Club. Under my leadership, we've grown into the largest tech club on campus with more than 270 students on our canvas page and with an average of around 40 participants a session. We teach, discuss, host speakers, and compete.

2020

QAnon Twitter Research

Computer Science Independent Project

I undertook an independent project in computer science where I generated novel research about the influence of QAnon rhetoric on the Twitter messages of mainstream House Republicans over time using Machine Learning tools. I spent more than 600 hours on the project, while also taking 5 other courses.

2020

New Junior

Phillips Academy Andover

After 7 years at St. Albans, it was time to make a change. I left in the middle of a global pandemic to attend the world's best boarding school... virtually. I've maintained a 5.8/6.0 GPA with coursework intended for sophomores or juniors in college.

2020

The Gen Z Project

Founder

I was frustrated by the gaps in youth polling, so I decided to do it myself. I set up The Gen Z Project to provide quality qualitative research on teens.

2020

Summer Program

Stanford Humanities Institute

I attended the prestigious Stanford Humanities Institute, where I took an intensive course on Ancient Rome and its legacies. Under Stanford Professor Christopher Krebs, I read nearly two dozen texts and enjoyed every minute of my experience.

2019

Student Journalism

St. Albans News, The Exchanged, The Phillipian, The Revere.

I've edited and written for four student publications. In 2019, I was the only editor to serve at both of my school's newspapers and the youngest editor at both. I wrote articles which garnered as much as 15x the interaction of the next-most-interacted-with article from the publication. Read some of my writings above.

2018

Euro Challenge

The Federal Reserve Bank, New York City.

Euro Challenge is a national economics competition sponsorerd by the EU. My team and I taught ourselves economics and won our regional competition. We then received a paid trip to present at the Fed, where we placed 6th in the country.

© 2024 Theo Baker.

Currently Reading: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe